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Microsoft Says More People Are Switching From Macs To Surface Than Ever Before (theverge.com)
Microsoft has been targeting Mac users with its Surface commercials recently, and it appears they might be paying off. From a report on The Verge: The software giant claims that November was the "best month ever for consumer Surface sales," following a number of Black Friday deals on the Surface Pro 4. Microsoft still isn't providing sales numbers, but the company claims "more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before." Microsoft cites "the disappointment of the new MacBook Pro" and its trade-in program for MacBooks for tempting people to switch to Surface. Again, Microsoft refuses to provide numbers but vaguely claims "our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever."
That would be "more than ever before"...
If true, it's because Macs are starting to suck for geeks who really just want a dependable Linux-like machine. That silly new "swipe bar", the loss of easy USB ports, and more.
However, I can't see myself ever going to a Surface. My main Windows laptop is a Dell Latitude that can double as a desktop and compiles quickly with a large screen. I also have a Windows tablet I use to surf the web, buy stuff and play Civ 5. But the Surfaces are just trash - hybrids for consumers, with no value for geeks.
Last month 1 person traded, this month 2 more did.
So more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before. It reminds me of an episode of the US version of The Office. This may not be word for word what happened, but it's close enough to make my point.
Pam: I doubled my sales from the previous month.
Andy (sarcastically) : Yeah, to 2 from 1.
Pam: Yep.
Is there a Touch Bar with a tiny piano? Didn't think so.
Okay, which one of you switched to Surface?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
i just went back to a desktop. except for my work laptop the Macbook and other laptops i've had rarely left the house and now i have a smartphone for that
the iMac or MBP, plus the applecare to pay for that hard drive or SSD that has a good chance of dying within three years plus tax and you're close to $3000 just to run the same Google Chrome as a Wintel machine for 1/3 the price or less runs
...waiting until Netcraft confirms.
Some Guy: We had 3 switchers!
Bill: Really? That's more than we have ever had before.
I got a surface at work to replace an aging laptop. I suspect a lot of surface purchases are of a similar nature. Microsoft may be cutting into Mac purchases, but I suspect they are cutting even more into OEM business.
...Mac to Surface conversion than ever before!
Yesterday: 0
Today: Best ever
If these trends continue, tomorrow will be tremendous!
With apologies to Mark Twain:
There are lies, damned lies, and marketing.
If the figures were really that great, why not provide them? Wouldn't that be a punch to the gut to Apple?
No facts. Typical PR spin. Do we really need this kind of fluff trotted our repeatedly?
Ask Bill Belichick just how great Surface tablets are.
Are you really comparing a MBP to a Chromebook like they serve the same roll? Really?
Maybe you're just an idiot for paying 3k for a web browser but there is no Chromebook that can do anything for me that my MBP does, other than browse the web.
If you don't do anything other than what a Chromebook does, then you're an idiot for buying anything OTHER than a Chromebook.
Your post illustrates your shortcomings and in ability to buy the right product, not any of the flaws on the current MBP
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Sorry, I disagree. I have a Surface Pro 4 (mid-line model provided by work) and it doubles just fine as a desktop for me. If you have the docking station and monitors it's a nice device. It runs visual studio pretty easily with solutions with 10-15 projects so it's no problem with other text editors or simpler tools. It may struggle with Photoshop or high end video editing, but for development - it's fine. I'm also running a VM with Linux Mint. I'm not a huge MS fan but this device has worked pretty well for me.
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
Admiral Aspergers reporting for duty, sir!!
- You
Look around. Have you ever seen a Surface outside of the NFL sideline? And stop it with "well I have one and I love it, and so do all my friends". No you don't, you are a shill. The evidence is all around you. You don't see them on the streets, in coffeeshops, at places of business. They ship a lot to retailers for sure, but they don't sell any.
that hard drive or SSD that has a good chance of dying within three years
You mean the same chance as the HD or SSD in your linux/bsd/windows machine? If not, can you provide a cite?
you're close to $3000 just to run the same Google Chrome as a Wintel machine for 1/3 the price or less runs
The idea that a Chromebook is the same as every other laptop has soundly been dismissed several dozen times here. Can we please move on from this dialog? Aside from that? I've paid nearly as much for a "premium" Windows laptops and they didn't last a third as long as my MBP. In this way the money was worth it and I'm not paying for OS upgrades. I agree that I could have done as well with some Linux installations but if you honestly think you're getting the same quality of hardware out of a cheap laptop as you are something like a MBP or a ThinkPad then you're just fooling yourself. Even as my MBP is into its fourth year it still kicks the crap out of most ThinkPads. Zero hardware failures, zero rebuilds and I use it daily. How much is it worth it to you not to have to sit an fidget with a machine that I use daily.
To me it's no different from a project car... I can let things go if my project car has issues but my daily driver better be reliable. That I cannot afford to make excuses for.
>> If you have the docking station and monitors it's a nice device. It runs visual studio pretty easily...
I agree with this. However I buy laptops so I don't have to use the docking station (sometimes I just want to fool around with code in front of the TV). Happy to hear about compiler performance, though - it's about time!
Citing vague stats as 'more than ever' is so blatantly stupid as to imply their buyers are swayed by such crap.
>> there is no Chromebook that can do anything for me that my MBP does,
Why did this get modded down? This guy's right on: if you're a developer and your company gives you a Chromebook, you're probably mostly going to use it to hit job boards.
>> open 6 or more solutions with 100+ projects
:)
It sounds like you need an architect more than a laptop.
McDonalds claims more and more people are switching to the Big Mac, from Burger King's Whopper!
Unlike previous generations I'm starting to see the machines around.
Apple screwed up the iPad Pro because you can't actually do anything "Pro" with it - no Xcode, no virtual machines. I could mitigate this by doing work in the cloud, but I can't compile Xcode in the cloud without horrible hacks and lag. (e.g. remote desktop).
The keyboard also sucks on the smart case compared to the surface. I am unsure about the keyboard on the new Macbook series.
Essentially, if you want to do technical work, but want a tablet for reading, say, you need to take an iPad and a computer - or just a surface. That is attractive.
Apple is migrating to a consumer products company. I'm considering switching now; 16 years since I bought a Titanium Powerbook. I must not be alone.
I heard it about the Zune.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Cliche as it is to say, Apple has lost its way post-Jobs.
An infinite fold increase from 0 to 1
There. I said it.
unless you need it for IOS development Windows runs virtually every IDE out there along with all the graphical and other creation tools
Yes, but you aren't the target market for Apple, effluent idiots are. They just use creative types for their marketing to make the effluent idiots feel cool. Apple knows that it's the parents that buy the kids computers for school. They know that the actual devs out there will buy whatever they please. That's why they force you into a Mac to reliably publish iOS apps. They need to force your hand once you're all grown up. They can't have you buying a cheap Chromebook and putting a real Linux distro on it.
As someone who has never been able to like Apple products despite many attempts, I was looking forward to getting myself an MS Surface Pro 4. And although the HW specs are good, the user interface is absolutely horrible. Integration with the pen is a kludge. It is simply not possible to use the pen natively across the applications and when an application is specifically design for pen use (as in MS Note) the US still leaves much to be desired. So you are left having to primarily use it as a laptop replacement that can occasionally use the pen for special applications.
For me to use Surface as a pen computing platform, at the very minimum I should be able to write anywhere on the screen without switching to special modes per application and the OS should intelligently convert my strokes into text characters or mouse clicks as necessary. That is simply not the case now.
As a laptop replacement, you can make a case for Surface if you are willing to trade size for weight. But imo, the price doesn't justify that use case. But then again, that depends on how fat your bank account is :)
effluent idiots
They are full of shit!
Surface Pro4's top CPU: i7-6650U
Average CPU Mark: 4889
Single Thread Rating: 1821
My laptop's CPU: i7 3940XM
Average CPU Mark: 9378
Single Thread Rating: 2025
My desktop's CPU: i7 4770K
Average CPU Mark: 10121
Single Thread Rating: 2255
[Side by side benchmarks of the above]
I have no idea what you're using your machine for but it certainly won't fit a lot of people's use cases.
no stupid, i just built a $1000 PC that plays games, i'll use to teach my kids to code, i can work on via hyper-v and not pollute the main OS with my work software, etc all for $1000. and if something breaks i can replace it piece by piece
i have an MBP at home. i don't develop for IOS so there is nothing OS X does that Windows doesn't do. for the road my wife and I have two iphones, two galaxies and two ipads
The new MBP has a lot of people looking at going to Windows 10 - those I know that are heavy users of Wacom tablets are definitely considering Surface but it has a lot of the same downfalls as the new Macbook "pro" - 16gb ram, poor port choice, not the greatest keyboard, etc.
When I point out to the Mac users in my universe that I could get them a Dell or Lenovo with 32 or even 64GB ram and a better CPU, more storage and better I/O port selection for a few hundred less than a new MBP, they tend to start thinking about how they could move their workflows to Windows or Linux. For the people I am thinking of, they would rather have a laptop weigh a couple more pounds if it means getting more work done faster.
MS isnt really winning any business here, Apple is throwing the business away!
Isn't if funny how similar that word is to affluent. To be fair of my mistake, they both carry many similarities.
But the Surfaces are just trash - hybrids for consumers, with no value for geeks.
Yeah a lot of people think so till they use them. But let's pick you apart sentence by sentence.
trash
Best in the hybrid its class for all metrics is trash?
hybrids
Yep. You tend to find that those people bitching about hybrids are the same people who think they need a hummer to do the grocery shopping. People who need a fully featured laptop are in the minority, and judging by your previous statement (my Surface Pro 3 + docking station kicks the shit out of my HP EliteBook + it's shitty docking station) you're falling right into this trap.
for consumers
That's a big claim for a device with system specs targeted at professionals, and features designed specifically for a certain set of professional content creators, businesses, and pre-loaded with software for the above.
with no value for geeks.
That's for me to decide, not you. Personally I found it my most valuable device since my desktop. It certainly more valuable than carrying around a tablet and a laptop.
Are you really comparing a MBP to a Chromebook
Maybe you're just an idiot for paying 3k for a web browser but there is no Chromebook
If you don't do anything other than what a Chromebook does, then you're an idiot for buying anything OTHER than a Chromebook.
Mentions of "chromebook" in the post you are replying to: 0.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
If everyone is so disappointed then why are the new Macbooks selling so well?
I saw a story on slashdot a while ago claiming Mac users were switching to Linux as well.
It just sounds like hardware manufacturers are trying to cause doubt to get more sales, because the reality doesn't seem to show that people are switching away from Macs given they are selling so fast.
Twinstiq, game news
is like going from bad to worse. No thanks.
Can you point out where, in the post you're replying to, you get the idea that you're supposed to be impressed? Go ahead.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I had mod points and was going to mod him back up, but then I realized that he's not "right on." He got modded down because no one said anything about a Chromebook, and certainly no one ever said anything about a Chromebook replacing a MBP. So his post is irrelevant and off-topic.
If true, it's because Macs are starting to suck for geeks who really just want a dependable Linux-like machine.
Why? They work just as well for that as they did before. They are still much better at it than a Surface because all of the BSD UNIX utilities have been in the Mac forever, and MS is just starting to support things like a real shell...
That silly new "swipe bar", the loss of easy USB ports, and more.
The Touch Bar is really useful. It doesn't block Linux stuff at all because if an app does nothing special with the touch bar it reverts to ESC plus function keys. But anything could be programmed to make use of it, and it's really handy when it does... I can easily see the Touch Bar being extremely useful in Emacs and VI for example.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except that affluent idiots (unless you really did mean effluent) arn't the only target market. A huge portion of the market goes to sysadmins, developers, etc, who use the machines for real work.
Those people consider the latest MBP to be a ridiculous pile of horse shit. I mean, Apple's lineup has been becoming more and more of a joke as the years go on, but they seem to be now at the 'lets just take as much piss as we can". I use a mac, and know a number of others who use Macs, because they provide the best of both worlds between windows and linux for the work that we do. The slight price premium was worth it for the dramatically lower number of headaches and bullshit one had to deal with.
Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. It's bad enough that the feature/price ratio has gotten significantly worse than it used to be. But now the products are just a fucking joke. Before they oh so generously cut the price on their dongles, you could easily spend $400-$500 in dongles just to reach parity with what you could do before. And of course, you are now required to carry around a dead octopus worth of cables to cover all the possible situations you may need.
This was fine when it was just the Air. That's what the Air was designed for. But pulling this idiocy on a laptop that is specifically meant for professionals? Someone needs to dig up Steve Job's coffin and repeatedly hit Tim Cook with it.
that's the problem. i don't want a DEVICE, i want a COMPUTER.
desktop it is.
i don't need internet everywhere so don't need a fancy phone. when i do need portability, i don't need "power" or my "stuff", so a kindle or old laptop works. but on my desk, i need a damn computer, not a toy or a 'device'.
> You mean the same chance as the HD or SSD in your linux/bsd/windows machine?
Yep, the same chance as the one in your Linux/BSD/Windows machine.
But the drive in the Linux/BSD/Windows machine isn't hard soldered in. Replacing it doesn't involve buying a whole new computer.
He said that it did everything mentioned with no problem. He didn't say whether or not it could handle more. It only sounds "like toy software" because that was your predeveloped opinion.
Why is Fast Billy Gates wasting his money on climate change? It's all lies. The Donald has proven climate change is false. Don't worry about Russian hackers. Palin can see them from Alaska. Donald loves the poorly educated and the poorly educated love Donald. Putin looks great on horseback. My Gyna is huuuuge!
Couldn't agree more. I'm an actual real life switcher. When Yosemite came out, I realized Apple was heading in a direction I didn't want to go anymore while simultaneously I was impressed by the Surface. In the end, I bought an ASUS UX305 for a year, but my personal computer is now a Surface Book. I say the following as somebody who has used high-end Mac hardware since 2001: the surface book is the best computer I've ever owned. After a friend, who is a graphic designer, had her mac break down, I told her to try one. She'd never owned a PC, nor her family her whole life. Her words to her dad who jokingly called her a traitor: "Apple has lost its edge. This is way better."
If true, it's because Macs are starting to suck for geeks who really just want a dependable Linux-like machine
Anecdotal, like everything else, but I know people who despise Microsoft yet have a Surface - because it's one of those few things, like Office, that's produced by Microsoft yet inexplicably doesn't suck complete ass.
Regardless of Microsoft trumpeting over nothing (Surface still isn't the major player that comparable offerings from Apple or Samsung are) - Apple is... Not quite in trouble. They have more money than god. But many longstanding Apple users are fleeing the ship because we're not buying that the watertight bulkheads are watertight.
"Courage" is for dying on the field of glory, not for dealing with a lack of jacks, ports, or dealing with an increasingly buggy and bloated OS X or iOS.
I’m still okay with my MacBook Pro. We’ll see what kinds of futher crippling Apple does as time goes on, and I may be forced onto another platform just to get work done.
But as for tablets, it’s a whole other story. If you want a toy or something that the kids can use as an educational tool, the iPad is fine. I understand that there are some good productivity apps too, although accessing your files on iPad seems annoying to me. At this point, the only thing I use my iPad 2 for is to watch Netflix at night in bed, and it kinda sucks at that, given the way Apple has (a) forced upgrades of iOS and (b) used those upgrades to completely cripple older hardware.
If I want a tablet, I’m seriously looking at the Surface products. It’s a real computer running a real OS with real files and an x86 processor. It coudl replace both an iPad and an aging MacBook Pro.
And of course, Microsoft knows this, which is why they’re appealing to the market that Apple is slowly but inevitably leaving behind.
BTW, I use the audio jack on my iPhone 6 constantly, and I plug in to charge at the same time. F. U. Apple and your iPhone 7.
chances are a wintel laptop will do just as fine but when it's other people's money they want a status MBP to show off. and apple of course will suck up all the cash they can in this case
and they said that it was impossible to cure gays
Just bought a 2015 15 inch MBP - figured I have one more round before I give up on Apple entirely. It's a nice machine, nothing as good as it could be for a pro level tool, but functional.
But increasingly Apple is deciding that the 'pro' line is for people to hang out in Starbucks and do whatever it is they do intently peering at Facebook.
It was a nice ride, perhaps in 4 or 5 years when this laptop gets old and flaky Windows 11 will be pretty good. And Bernie Sanders cyborg will be president. And the USA will be great again.
I think I'm just going to get depressed. That usually works.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
heh :)
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Best in the hybrid its class for all metrics is trash?
The least smelly dog turd is still a dog turd.
For me the great use of these tablets is keeping notes with my experiments. You can design experiments with drawings quickly. You can keep a dated log of experiments. You can paste graphs in result files etc. Everything without typing. I love it, it works for me better than anything else. My major reason not to buy a surface tablet though is that they are absolutely not repairable. I'm using a Samsung tablet at the moment that I can peel apart. Looking at HP for a new tablet that you can take apart and fix. And I'm still waiting for a good open source replacement for MS onenote that I can use on linux...
Yeah, and soon it might even be the fastest-growing computing platform! https://xkcd.com/1102/
It's because they finally shipped something and no one previously COULD switch. Now, the % increase looks incredible, like the increase from 1 to 2.
Good job, MS.
The days of Kin, Zune, Windows Phone are kinda sorta behind you!
It's also buying.
I am mostly MAC here and I bought a Surface pro to add to the tools available. It is not replacing my laptop, in fact my 2012 Mac Book pro is screaming fast with an SSD and no need to buy a new device that is only 15% faster and uselessly thinner.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you have a Windows tablet, you can't be honest in your claim that the Surface is trash - having used both the Surface and "your average OEM Windows tablet", the Surface presents by far the better experience.
I loaded Windows one last time when Windows 8 came out - and upgraded to Windows 10 on all of the systems used primarily for gaming in the household. That's when the problems started happening: I detected a large number of connections back to Redmond Washington coming from each machine. Taken together these connections brought my network to a stand still, primarily I believe due to NAT table conflicts and related resource issues on the router/firewall. I loaded Linux - and the problem went away.
With Steam, and other gaming venues for Linux - I'm done. Never going back to Windows again. If I were to buy a surface - it would be to load Linux on it - which would be a waste of money.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
The giant fly-head claims that November was the "best month ever for eating sh--," following a number of turds on the surface of the road. Giant fly-head still isn't providing sales numbers, but claims "more flies are eating sh-- than ever before." Giant fly-head cites "the disappointment of dried turds" and its trade-in program for maggots for tempting people to switch to sh--. Again, Giant fly-head refuses to provide numbers but vaguely claims "our trade-in program for maggots was our best ever."
bullshit!
1) Crashes
2) Ridiculous limitations
3) No apps available and those that actually are available, are outdated and unstable.
4) Endless bugs
Microsoft + anything = problems eventually arising. Perhaps all these people have too little excitement in their lives?
Chrome does not imply Chromebook. Please brush on on your reading comprehension.
... the autism-hating, Musk-hating, custom EpiPen-hating Slashdot troll!
macs are also becoming not very enterprise friendly.
With the soldered in storage being a big turn off for some usages.
The lack of server hardware / the min being a poor fit for the roll. Also apple does not let run mac os in a VM on non apple hardware. (it can be done but apple's license says no)
Apples lack of OS downgrade rights
Apples tendency to drop ports and more on the fly.
Windows runs virtually every IDE out there along with all the graphical and other creation tools
And all the stability bringing updates you could possibly want coupled with almost 0 control of your own environment
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Apple is losing it, stupid hardware decisions solder in the ram, solder in the ssd getting rid of the escape key. They do good things too but seriously they are making things worse not better and picking the right mac even used is pretty tricky after the gpu problems they have had over the years. They need to make them repairable and serviceable. At least some of them.
Software wise they made that disaster of a program ibooks, that rips your books and pdf's out of itunes and buries them in a useless format in a hidden directory.
On a plus side you can get rid of it use app cleaner to remove ibooks and itunes use pacifist to reinstall itunes 11.4 then upgrade to itunes 12.5.3 then its nearly back to being good again. True to actually read an ebook on the mac you need to use drag and drop but i've still been able to make a central collection on my Nas that I can pull what I want when I want it and happily delete it from phones laptops ect when I don't.
Apple refuses to play nice with machines that are not made by apple android phone no way apple will sync with that. and why icloud for syncing why not let me do it on my lan
i'd love iTunes to handle my docs but so far I have only found iDocument for doing that. when you get used to filing by database and associations its a much cleaner way of doing things and gets rid of clutter and old dead files.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Another one starting sentences in lower case.
Wonder why someone would exhibit this 5-year-old behaviour.
Cannot be laziness because the shift seems to got found occasionally.
"Company X says product Y is better than their competitors" is not news, especially when NO SPECIFIC DATA is provided to prove this claim. C'mon folks, I expect Slashdot to post interesting stuff, not marketing fluff pieces.
Given the form-factors isn't the better comparison between a Surface and an iPad rather than a laptop? A Surface is not going to beat a laptop but, as a current Mac and iPad user I am planning to switch to Windows (albeit with a Dell XPS 15 when they release the updated version) and Surface looks like a good iPad replacement: it seems to be able to do a lot more and the price isn't that different vs. an iPad Pro.
It hasn't just lost it's way it so bad you have to wonder if it is using it's own Apple Maps to navigate.
In reality, the market for Surface is a fraction of what the MacBook market is and as soon as Apple puts a 64GB option on their high-end laptops they will see a large(and stupidly lucrative) spike in sales. The CPU they are using on the highest-end MacBook is already capable of supporting 64GB http://ark.intel.com/products/...
Sales:
http://pocketnow.com/2016/02/0... https://www.statista.com/stati...
But that's the thing... a Wintel laptop *can* suffice, but you have to set it up before it is. For example, cygwin is great and all, but it doesn't hold a candle to an honest-to-god bash prompt.
Using a Mac is basically what I believe using Linux *should* be like. It (for the most part) just works. The OS balances a perfect line between being drop-dead easy for people who arn't technically inclined, while being just a couple settings away from giving you all the power and control you could want. (And by control, I don't mean being able to customize the OS to whatever suits your fancy at the time. Being able to change your mouse cursor doesn't make you more productive).
They are, quite plainly, more reliable, and more predictable to use than any Windows machine ever. I moved my parents to Macs, my support calls went from almost nightly, to monthly.
Which is why I'm absolutely, utterly, livid that Apple is pulling these shenanigans. They had a platform that I *enjoyed* using, and they are doing their damndest to sabotage all that in an effort to maximize their already ludicrous profits.
How many people are "switching" from Windows to Mac, though?
Are you really comparing a MBP to a Chromebook like they serve the same roll? Really?
Maybe you're just an idiot for paying 3k for a web browser but there is no Chromebook that can do anything for me that my MBP does, other than browse the web.
If you don't do anything other than what a Chromebook does, then you're an idiot for buying anything OTHER than a Chromebook.
Your post illustrates your shortcomings and in ability to buy the right product, not any of the flaws on the current MBP
Mods? Parent is "-1 Insightful"???
If that doesn't demonstrate what is wrong with Slashdot's moder-haters, I don't know what does...
There are lies, damned lies, marketing, and politics.
Another one starting sentences in lower case.
Wonder why someone would exhibit this 5-year-old behaviour.
Cannot be laziness because the shift seems to got found occasionally.
Maybe he's e e cummings?
Yup it's downvoted because it's off-topic. No one ever said anything about a Chromebook except him. We can only assume he's trolling. Looks like the moderation system is working as it should.
Yes, but you aren't the target market for Apple, effluent idiots are. They just use creative types for their marketing to make the effluent idiots feel cool.
Interesting. Nearly ALL of my Mac-owning friends are engineers (mostly EEs), and I am an embedded developer myself. The other two that aren't engineers are an Ophthalmologist (who is also a software dev.) and a friend that is a CPA, JD and CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner). Only one other acquaintance is a "creative" type; but since he is a "signed" musician that makes his living with his Mac, I'm not sure he counts as an "idiot".
Oh, and I don't know if you were trying to make a pun with "effluent" (sewage) rather than "affluent" (rich); but if not, you're the idiot...
Isn't if funny how similar that word is to affluent. To be fair of my mistake, they both carry many similarities.
But in your case, apparently you're too stupid to know the difference.
nd of course, you are now required to carry around a dead octopus worth of cables to cover all the possible situations you may need.
Show me another laptop with 80 Gbps of raw I/O bandwidth.
You just don't get it.
Which is why I'm absolutely, utterly, livid that Apple is pulling these shenanigans. They had a platform that I *enjoyed* using, and they are doing their damndest to sabotage all that in an effort to maximize their already ludicrous profits.
Have you used one in a real-world application yet?
Try it before you dismiss it.
And "Adapter world" is only temporary, until the world catches up to USB-C, which is already well-underway.
The only people I know with Surface are the ones who own MSFT stock.
I'll believe this when I see it in the real world
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Uh huh. Sure. Please post a picture of you (or your "friend") actually using a Surface. No one would switch from a Mac to a Surface. They aren't even in the same space.
Remember the last time MS tried this fake "Switcher" bs? Turned out they were using paid shills and Getty Images for their "real" people...
macs are also becoming not very enterprise friendly.
With the soldered in storage being a big turn off for some usages.
The lack of server hardware / the min being a poor fit for the roll. Also apple does not let run mac os in a VM on non apple hardware. (it can be done but apple's license says no)
Apples lack of OS downgrade rights
Apples tendency to drop ports and more on the fly.
None of your examples are relevant to a laptop.
If you've got this much time to pick apart my post during the day...I'm guessing you aren't a developer. :)
Surfaces might be fine for the masses who are OK with crappy keyboards, small screens, etc. but if I have to work with something for hours a day, it isn't going to be a Surface.
It's true they're different breads.
And "Adapter world" is only temporary, until the world catches up to USB-C, which is already well-underway.
The only reason Apple has to "design for the future" is because they don't refresh their hardware at reasonable intervals. When was the last time the Mac Pro was updated? But if you need high-end mac machines, that's your only option right now. It's a joke.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Microsoft Says More People Are Switching From Macs To Surface Than Ever Before
They said in a Trump voice...
nd of course, you are now required to carry around a dead octopus worth of cables to cover all the possible situations you may need.
Show me another laptop with 80 Gbps of raw I/O bandwidth. You just don't get it.
What are the applications for that much bandwidth? In a laptop?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
No I haven't, because it's not designed for the real world. You know, the one where Ethernet cables, and USB 2/3.0 devices, HDMI, and SD Cards still exist and won't be going away for at least a decade.
This isn't like parallel, serial or SCSI ports whose days were very clearly numbered when Apple cut them off. Losing access to floppies was annoying but still grudgingly inevitable. But USB? There is no excuse for removing those. HDMI? It's still being actively developed! Their new MBP will be obsolete long before HDMI is.
Apple wants to make "Adapter world" the new normal cause they know they can make a fortune on the things. Just look at their long history of mangled DVI adapters. Micro DVI, Mini DVI, mini HDMI, mini DP... Apple has a dongle addiction something fierce, and now they've gone too far.
No, I have *every* right to dismiss it, just as the overwhelming majority of tech people are dismissing it. Whoever signed off on the design of the latest MBP is either a moron, or a money-grubbing MBA looking to capitalize on accessory profits, or both.
The Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book CPU's are all dual-core. Yes, even the i7 is dual-core in those. Of course a quad-core CPU is going to thrash it.
It's because of the power/heat envelope. Surface Pros already are a tablet with cooling fans, which just seems wrong for some reason. Imagine if you turned it into a high-wattage, quad-core space-heater in a tablet form-factor. The users would be pissed after the visit to the burn ward.
I'm a software developer working from home far more than 8 hours a day, and for years the only machine in the room with me was a first-gen Surface Pro (peace and quiet and no heat), hooked up to a standard USB dock (not even MS's) that had my full-size keyboard, mouse, three 1920x1200 monitors and a bunch more peripherals. I can assure you that the "crappy keyboard" and "small screen" is not an impediment.
Now, if you tried to make the point that this was a problem while out on the road, I might've granted you that to an extent. But I have used a Surface, for work, for hours a day and it's a perfectly viable solution. I've only stopped using it because I've replaced it with a NUC that can drive a 4K display. I'd still be using it otherwise.
I have a Surface Pro 3 and I use it for everything I do. When I'm at my desk, I have it in a docking station with a StarTech DisplayPort Multimonitor splitter, so I have two large 1920x1200 monitors plus the Surface Pro 2160x1440 display. My system has an i7-4650U CPU, 8 GB RAM, and a 500 GB SSD. It makes for a better development machine than the HP Elitebook that I had before it. I run Visual Studio, Blender, etc. Everything that I had done before, including KDE Neon Linux via VirtualBox.
When I take it out of the docking station, it makes a very nice laptop or tablet, with a high-resolution, pressure sensitive screen for note taking or drawing (I wish I had some artistic talent). Very convenient for watching movies or reading. As a tablet, my one complaint is that the edges are just a bit too angular. Not as nice to hold as some other tablets that I've used. Maybe the Pro 4 is better in that regard, I don't know.
As a laptop, the magnetic connection keyboard could be better (I have a Pro 4 keyboard). I've had the tablet detach and fall when I've pushed the stand back to an awkward angle. But, all-in-all, this is best computer that I've ever had (and I go all the way back to a Commodore Pet).
Honestly, the apt comparison here would be the Surface Book with the Macbook Pro. They're both aimed at businesses / developers, they're both supposed to be quite fast, and they're judged on the basis of availability of features that a professional would use. While the surface pro is a fine system for light work, it's not really in the same market segment or performance category.
(That said, I use an original surface pro for classwork - and it handles things like photoshop, maya, and the like without issue.)
Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
Recent versions of OS X are no better in either regard.
Except that all the sysadmin I know are using Macs, have used Macs, and say they'll continue to use Macs, other than gaming machines. I work with a few hundred sysadmin, not that many people call themselves that anymore.
Developers have always used Windows PCs because developers developers developers developers. They develop for the most used platform, not necessarily the best.
Windows OS is a security flaw by design, the new version is google tracking on steroids, and most people don't care about ports because everything they use is wireless, like routers and printers.
The surface machines are as expensive or more so than a Mac, and while Mac hater seem to want to point out "Mac's haven't been updated in five years" that's just not true, they look the same but the insides are updated regularly, and that's what matters.
I use Windows as work at Macs at home, the new Surface products look great, but I'm not going to be doing any home banking on a Windows box anytime soon.
another person who cant seem smart enough to create an account wants to talk shit......
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
From an admin point of view, give me the Windows equiv of JAMF/JSS/Casper, ease of imaging (e.g. not dealing with having to manage drivers in MDT) and target mode in Windows systems, and the ability to TURN OFF all the annoying stupid cr@p in Windows 10 to turn it back into an OS rather than a bloated app, and yes I'll gleefully love Windows again. Luckily for me our company is mostly software nerds that like OS X/macOS because it just works, there is Unix under the hood and they hate all the dumb things Windows does which gets in the way of productivity.
Get back to us when you structure your solutions properly so you don't have to have 100+ projects open.
You know what? You're a classic abusive boyfriend that can't handle being wrong, so you prefer to gaslight people instead of accepting that maybe a mistake was made somewhere.
I've already left a more technical comment elsewhere so I'm not going to re-iterate, but I felt compelled to comment on this because I was just so awe-struck by your breathtaking arrogance.
Just because I don't deep throat Apple's reality distortion field doesn't mean "I don't get it". I've been using Apple products for a long time now, for the simple fact that for me, they do the job better than any competing product. But circumstances have changed.
But the raw facts are that Apple have all but abandoned their desktop lines, and have put out a laptop that is so myopically designed that they've all but given the middle finger to a significant portion of their customer base.
If you just skim through the various comments, you will see countless pissed off people who are either sticking with what they have, or are preferentially buying previous gen hardware when they have to. I have colleagues who have been utter die-hard apple fans for years, and they are saying the same thing I am.
If you really think that this many people "Don't get it", maybe you need to take a step back and ask yourself if maybe YOU'RE the one who "Doesn't get it".
While I agree that it was short sighted what they did with USB... 400-500USD? Really? For that price you can even get more than a dozen dongles from Apple direct not to mention the dozens of dongles you can get from Amazon. I'd like to see you justify the dozen adapters you need for a single laptop that only had 2 USB ports on the previous generation.
Has anyone noticed how often Microsoft hardware has been visible in TV shows recently?
I bought a surface pro 4 a little over a year ago when they were first introduced. Seeing the kickstand on every NFL broadcast was the obvious first location. Since then I've seen the machines in plenty of other TV shows. Even sometimes it's obvious when the Microsoft laptop is being used because of the position of the camera on the outside of the laptop.
I think that paying for product placement has probably been a very good deal for Microsoft, though it's hard to quantify the results. It's just too bad that they didn't do it in the phone arena back when they had a chance at competing.
The Mac Pro was last updated in 2012.
In 2013 they slapped its name on a trashcan with decent components inside. Just like how this time around, they are slapping the Macbook Pro name on what really should just be 13" and 15" versions of the 12" Macbook.
I'm typing this from my surface. Not that you'd know it as I have KVM attached and you can't see it right now. I play Civ and compile all my code on this with no problems. It's easily as powerful as my other laptops and much more portable. However my desktop certainly powers through that crap single threaded Civ code on the large maps better.
My iMac and Macbook are 9. They both work perfectly.
Of late, the newer version of macos is bloated and slow compared to older versions.
Many of the older macs can only have so much RAM installed, so some can't run the most recent os versions.
Since new macs are not cheap, and you can get into a surface by turning in your 9-year-old macbook, a lot of the turn over is from people with old/broken macbooks.
What Chromebook? No one said anything about a Chromebook except those who apparently misread the post.
Apple has begun its drive to the bottom in search of short term gains, and is starting by removing solid hardware in favor of higher profit margin cheap hardware. Seeing a lot more failures lately. They're also intentionally making the hardware more difficult to service by third parties. Now the iMacs require double sided tape every time you open/close them.
Well, this was before Apple slashed the prices on their adapters after the uproar. I can probably get away with just $200-250 now.
But it's hardly unreasonable:
-DVI adapter
-HDMI adapter
-VGA adapter
-ethernet adapter
-either multiple USB-C->USB adapters or a USB-C hub/port replicator
-USB-C SD card reader
You can obviously save money by alternate brands, etc, but if you stuck with the "official" way that Apple wants you to do, the cost adds up really fast.
If you've got this much time to pick apart my post during the day...I'm guessing you aren't a developer. :)
Day? You do realise this is the internet right? ;-) I was busy at work during the day.
Surfaces might be fine for the masses who are OK with crappy keyboards, small screens, etc. but if I have to work with something for hours a day, it isn't going to be a Surface.
Actually I do work with a Surface for hours a day. It is a Surface in a docking station with a big screen and a nice full sized keyboard (ironically a Dell) which was the laptop the Surface replaced.
But I don't spend all day sitting at my desk. There's all those "value added" meetings to attend, where it really helps to scribble notes directly on the screen of the little thing rather than taking pen, pad, tear it out, walk to the scanner, and bin the sheet after for no reason, import the PDF, and then end up with something that isn't text searchable unlike the handwriting in OneNote which to it's credit does a pretty amazing job considering I have the pen dexterity of Michael J Fox.
Now admittedly I don't do loads of heavy processing on this machine, but then I didn't do it on any laptop I've had. We have a room full of high end machines to crunch numbers for the odd occasion where we need to. Workloads will differ, but I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of work done on a computer falls into the I'm typing shit in word, replying to this email, and stuffing around on some ill conceived web based garbage cobbled together in Sharepoint.
For DVI, VGA, and ethernet you had to buy dongles for the previous generation of machines too. DVI hasn't been built-in since the aluminum (non-unibody) generation. VGA hasn't been built in for 15 years.
Not really that surprising... those ports are physically too big for modern machines.
and honestly if I have to run Windows 10 on something - I prefer to a surface to a laptop or desktop. Not sure what the difference is, but it just seems and feels better. Maybe I still flinch at Windows mouse drivers from the bad old days or maybe the mouse routines still stink. My index finger driver still works flawlessly. That said, I'd still take my MacBook Pro over Surface or Chromebook. OS updates are bog simple and fast, the apps are powerful with lotsa FOSS available. I can run other OSs on it. My new favorite computer however is Raspberry Pi 3B running Raspbian. I've suggested that all of our incoming students get one.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Cliche
as it is to say,
Apple has lost its way
post-Jobs.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Shit that Surface Pro has almost the same CPU mark I've on my desktop. I guess editing 36 megapixel images, rendering gigapixel panoramas, processing astronomy data and all that other crap that puts me in the top 0.01% of computer users is just going to have to run 6.2% slower on the Surface Pro.
Okay I jest since my income doesn't depend on a compile running slightly faster. But in what world is a CPU with a CPUmark of 4889 not suitable for an incredibly diverse range of quite taxing tasks?
Search for 'OSX update fail' and ' "Windows 10" update fail' and report back on the differences in search results. That's going to return 11 versions worth of OSX update failures version just update failures for "Windows 10" which has not even been out 2 years yet. You'd think the OSX results would overwhelm the W10 results, but quite the opposite is true. You're buried in loads of various W10 updates that failed in some spectacular fashion, including MS pulling the update and releasing a new update afterwards. It's quite possible the forced update cycle compounds the effect of a bad update, but that is something MS decided to do on its own.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Not switching because:
Windows --> Linux (Complete) - tired of 'flaky' stability and features from one Windows release to the next. Linux is good enough to game on now - and that's about all I was holding onto windows for. Tried gaming on Mac a long long time ago - and gave up as was prohibitively expensive. Code, game, and surf on Linux.
Macs --> ? No reason to upgrade hardware at this time because I can't afford it for a number of reasons, and the 'new' tech isn't compelling enough to go into debt for new hardware anyway. Existing systems do what I need, and have the integration that I need for creative endeavors (graphics, sound, writing).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
If you want a 5K monitor with 60 hz connected with one cable, the latest Apple laptop with Thunderbolt 3 is the only option.
Why did this get modded down?
Because the parent is a troll (and hypocrite) that constantly lashes out at anyone as he feels - just look at all his posts.
Basically, he's Slashdot's answer to Donald Trump.
Video work for one. Compiling a modern Linux desktop environment another. Yes, there are legitimate reasons to do both.
I had to get one of these for a user who absolutely had to have one. A few months later he came into a meeting with a shitty personal laptop (not allowed by company policy but that's a different story). I asked where his surface was and he said that the keyboard didn't hold up to doing a lot of work. I've heard this from other users too. It's a neat idea and I thought the keyboard cover would be really cool but it just doesn't stand up to the treatment that a normal laptop can take.
They ship a lot retailers for sure, but they don't sell any.
Retail margins are thin and nothing is stocked or shelved which can't be moved quickly. The girl working check-out at the Dollar Store learns at least this much about running a business.
The numbers change hourly, but currently four of the best-selling 2 in 1 laptops at Amazon are Surface models in the $800-$3000 price range.
No I haven't, because it's not designed for the real world. You know, the one where Ethernet cables, and USB 2/3.0 devices, HDMI, and SD Cards still exist and won't be going away for at least a decade. This isn't like parallel, serial or SCSI ports whose days were very clearly numbered when Apple cut them off. Losing access to floppies was annoying but still grudgingly inevitable. But USB? There is no excuse for removing those. HDMI? It's still being actively developed! Their new MBP will be obsolete long before HDMI is.
You're an idiot.
Every single argument you now make was made regarding serial and parallel ports (SCSI never caught on in the PC desktop world like it did on Macs) when the original iMac threw them away in favor of USB.
Every. Single. One.
People who buy Mac laptops are very much used to using an adapter to suit whatever display they are hooking to. Not many displays, even now, are DisplayPort; so, Adapter. Yet no one (or nearly so) whines about that. They just purchase an adapter or two and get on with their lives.
And with USB-C to USB-A, there's even FAR LESS of an excuse, since the Adapters are readily available for a pittance (sub $10).
Let's look at it this way: No single collection of Ports on a Laptop can serve everyone; but with the USB-C/TB3 that's available through inexpensive (for the most part) adapters, almost any I/O configuration can be attained. That is simply not true with other ports. USB-C/TB3 truly is One Port to Rule Them All...
People are whining and whining about how the new MBPs are not "Pro" because they don't have USB-A Ports or SD Slots? Are they retarded???
When you can get:
(2) Thunderbolt 3, Daisy chain and power up to 5 Thunderbolt 3 devices
Two USB-C ports
(5) USB 3.1 Gen 1, Including two high-power USB Type-A ports for fast mobile device charging
FireWire 800
Gigabit Ethernet
mini DisplayPort
SD Card reader
Audio combo port For headphones or microphones
S/PDIF digital audio
Out of Just ONE of FOUR USB-C/TB3 Ports on the new MBP, what's not to like? What's not "Pro" about THAT I/O capability?
Oh, and the TB2 version is not only $60 cheaper (for one less port), but the graphic demonstrates just HOW much I/O this is... NO laptop is going to have all these ports. None. And if they do, that's IT; whereas the MBP still has THREE MORE USB-C/TB3 Ports left that you can "break out" to even MORE I/O!!!
And the simple fact is the USB-C/TB3 ports on the new MBP are actually more, not less "Future Proof"; because there will be adapters and docks available from a wide variety of sources for a very long time to come. So, long after the last VGA port disappears off the same laptop, you'll still be able to buy an Adapter that will nicely extract/recreate those signals and have the proper connector to hook-up to your wax-cylinder player...
You can thank Tim for that, he's just a quarterly profits slave to the shareholders.
Plenty of choices for laptops in the Lindows world. The 27" iMac with 5K display is still pretty hard to beat in my book - I use one of these at work, with a 1TB SSD they are dynamite machines.
OS X/macOS has started to eat performance on newer machines. I loaded 10.9 on an older MB Air the other day so our devs could do some testing in Safari 9. OS X 10.9 felt really snappy, even on an old Air, compared to 2015 model high end MB Pros running El Crapitian or Sieieieiera which is just a slower version of Crapitian with Siri in it.
If you just skim through the various comments, you will see countless pissed off people who are either sticking with what they have, or are preferentially buying previous gen hardware when they have to. I have colleagues who have been utter die-hard apple fans for years, and they are saying the same thing I am.
And all those people were also aghast when Apple had the temerity to release an iMac in 1997 with ONLY USB-A Ports.
Yes, Virginia; sometimes it really is Courage.
I have a good friend (who is a EE) who just purchased a Touch Bar 15" MBP, and he is VERY pleased with his purchase. You can call it Confirmation Bias, blah, blah; but he says the thing runs circles around even his Hackintoshes, which were built to be balls-out, performance-wise. He also says the Touch Bar is QUITE useful.
So, anecdotes v. anecdotes and horses for courses; but I submit that, by and large, the people who are bitching online have never layed their hands on the machine, and are just exercising that internet "right" of bitching just to bitch.
what world is a CPU with a CPUmark of 4889 not suitable for an incredibly diverse range of quite taxing tasks?
2010.
My major complaints with Windows 10 are: updates when Microsoft feels like it; updates that brick your machine; the size of the title bar buttons; virtual memory problems. I've moved about 95% of my work over to OS X but I still have one program that only runs on Windows. I upgraded it to Windows 10 and it has Virtual Memory and performance problems. It's happy to use up to 13 GB of RAM on one of my Windows 10 desktops. So I installed a Windows 7 VM on the Windows 10 system and it comfortably uses about 400 MB of RAM - so that's my workaround to the Virtual Memory problem. It also solves the button size problem. Windows 10 brought us those huge buttons, presumably, so that people could hit them on the touch screen. I work in a Linux environment and it is nice to have native X for your operating system.
Interesting, as I have all the control in the world to not install OS updates offered on my Mac.
Can't really say that about Windows, what with people getting Windows 10 shoved down their throat in the middle of the night against their will...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
To be fair, HDMI is a license-agreement encumbered piece of shit that brings nothing to the table that isn't available through DisplayPort, other than the number of deployed devices.
Even the connector sucks compared to DisplayPort, with it's positive locking. Not that Apple uses the full DisplayPort connector...
I can tell that you're not a vi/vim user just by that comment, because tactile feedback on the ESC key is really important to a vim user.
I can tell YOU are not an Emacs user because for many ESC is the most important also (since all typed commands start with M-x, if you aren't using the meta key then you use ESC).
I have used both emacs and VI a *ton*, I use both often still. In no way do I find "tactile feedback" of the ESC key in any way needed. With VI the issue is far more "what mode is it really in", not "Did I hit ESC" (which usually has a visual indicator at the bottom of the editor ).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You just replied for no other reason than to insult someone. Do you feel like a man now? I truly feel sorry for types like you.
http://www.cio.com/article/300...
Okay, so the Touch Bar is really useful...but can you honestly defend the loss of USB ports?
What loss of ports? It has four!! All of them are USB and power too, it's actually pretty amazing. And all of them are orientation-neutral (you can plug them in either side up).
The actual PLUGS may be a bit different but time and adaptors heal all wounds. In the long term having them all be the SAME plug is way more awesome.
Being a Slashdot reader how can you seriously be *against* a change that is better for hardware people?
If you lose your dongle or it dies or breaks
The are like $2 each, I have four as they are cheap and tiny. How would they "break" anyway, basically being a passthrough??? Being so cheap an plentiful I have a number of them here and there, I don't worry about not having one with me.
there's no possible excuse for it except to drive the sale of dongles.
Or, you know, not wanting to keep users having to use a shitty ancient standard until the end of time. Which I guess you are for? What an asshole!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People are actually moving from a genuinely reasonable, albeit expensive, platform, to what amounts to a pile of shite on a single sheet of single-ply tissue paper? =O
The last 'generation' of Macbook Pros had 2 x Thunderbolt (1 or 2), HDMI, 2 x USB 3.0 and a SDXC reader. I'm not sure where you were shopping, but even paying the old price for genuine Apple parts but ((2 x USB-C to Thunderbolt adaptors @ $49) + (2 x USB-C to USB 3.0 @ $19) + (USB-C to AV inc. USB 3.0 and HDMI @ $70) = $206, less than half your "$400-$500". If you pick non-Apple adaptors you can cut that even further and if you pick a small dock or hub rather than individual dongles you reduce item count and space so you don't need an 'octopus'. So, for those who need backwards compatibility, an additional $200 _max_ worth of adaptors may be necessary until your hardware replacement process purchases USB-C versions. This is in line with previous generation jumps such as dropping ethernet, ExpressCard, Firewire, optical disk etc.
Of the various design choices that were made for the current generation of Macbook Pro, the move to all USB-C is one of the least objectionable and probably the most in line with older design philosophies.
and what will cost when a full office is down for a new do to the systems all pulling the same update from the internet vs having a local server host that?
To bad apple does not have any thing that is good fit for the server room. The mini and new mac pro are very poor fits for that. and you can't run in an VM on non apple hardware. (it can be done but apple's license says no)
But Donald Trump is a god and you should be down on your knees begging for his forgiveness at your insult.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
You can stamp your feet and accuse people of being retarded idiots as much as you want. But that doesn't change the reality of the situation, which is that a large portion of Apple customers feel like they were just slapped in the face. Customer devotion is Apple's primary currency, and that currency just took a dump so hard you'd think Tim Cook deep throated a dozen Taco Bell chalupas.
I love how you're accusing people of being "idiots" and "retarded" when you're the one who sees invisible ports that don't exist.
FireWire 800 - Not there
Gigabit Ethernet - Not there
mini DisplayPort - Where?
SD Card reader - Nada
5 USB 3.1 gen 1 ports? - Nope
So I have to ask... what crack are you smoking, because there most certainly isn't *anything* other than a bunch of external bus ports that are otherwise useless without having to spend hundreds of dollars on adapters.
And then... and then... Okay, I'm laughing now... you actually point out a $300 port replicator, just to regain the ports that Apple took away? A Three. Hundred. Dollar. Port Replicator. Because dropping $3000 on a grossly under-equipped laptop wasn't enough of an insult?
Apparently *you* don't get it, let this idiot spell it out for you: I don't give a flying fuck if a single I/O port can let me transfer all the data generated by the Large Hadron Collider in under a minute. I DO care that I'm at someone's house, and they give me something on a USB key but I can't access it without pulling out my Sports Billy bag of dongles. I DO care that I can't connect to a presentation TV or projector without pulling out my Sports Billy bag of dongles. Or transfer photos from my camera. Or connect to a LAN via hardwire because wifi is (for whatever reason) unavailable/unusable (because that does actually happen, irregardless of the dream world you seem to live in). And heaven forbid I forget said Sports Billy bag, cause now I'm using a $3000 chromebook.
Almost *every* *single* real-world use-case has suddenly because an unnecessary hassle when before there was no issue. This is the hardware equivalent of when they switched from PowerPC to Intel, but *without* including Rosetta.
If Apple had left the HDMI port and just one lousy USB 3.1 port, there wouldn't be this uproar. If they had thrown some dongles into the box so people could hit the ground running with their existing stuff, people would eyeroll but there wouldn't be this uproar. But no, they had to take away ALL previous ports with no alternative, forcing people to jump through hoops and spend even more money to regain the shortfall. And now a supposed "portable" computer requires you to carry around a small bundle of adapters, like a new mother carrying a backpack of sundries for her baby. I was more than a little pissed off when they removed
I mean, when they released the iPhone 7, they were at least considerate enough to throw in a lightning to headphone adapter.
Right, and I can grudgingly accept that. Ditto with ethernet, as annoying as it is.
But HDMI? USB? An SD Card slot? Mini-DP port? There was plenty of room for those things last year, and the new model isn't that much thinner.
And "Adapter world" is only temporary, until the world catches up to USB-C, which is already well-underway.
The only reason Apple has to "design for the future" is because they don't refresh their hardware at reasonable intervals. When was the last time the Mac Pro was updated? But if you need high-end mac machines, that's your only option right now. It's a joke.
Wait, you are complaining that Apple focuses on the interfaces of the future because they supposedly don't update their machines often enough? But wasn't the usual complaint that Apple constantly brought out new machines and forced people to update every year because else you wouldn't get the latest must have interfaces?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I like MacBooks and I do need a new Mac for iOS development and I want to try the new Visual Studio for Mac.
But as you mentioned, they really alienated developer with this latest release, so I'll probably get a new Mac Mini if there is ever such a thing and skip this generation of MacBook Pro. I don't worry much about the dongle issue, that's a non-problem really, after all, I already have a thunderbolt dock with USB3 ports on it.
That said, I am writing this from a SurfaceBook i7/16GB/512GBssd. Unlike the MacBook Pro (previous generation) it has a usable keyboard, good graphics and a pen display which I make heavy use of.
I work 50% of the time as an IT instructor and my students ask me what my favorite computer is. I tell them this one, since it's the best one I've owned so far. Over the past 4 years, I've seen most of my students go from carrying Dells and HPs to carrying Macs and Surface Pros. I expect to see more Surface Pros and SurfaceBooks following this latest release.
Your claim that "adapter world" back than was bullshit, but now is plain obviously a thing is, well, bullshit. There is no difference between the "adapter world" of the iMac and the MacBook Pro.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
nd of course, you are now required to carry around a dead octopus worth of cables to cover all the possible situations you may need.
Show me another laptop with 80 Gbps of raw I/O bandwidth. You just don't get it.
What are the applications for that much bandwidth? In a laptop?
So what's the application for 32 GB RAM, a removable SSD and an "ESC" key in a laptop? Ohh, wait, you need to have a replaceable SSD because it's too slow, right?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The latest MacBook and MacBook Pro's are a joke. Thinner, lighter, faster is cute but when that design means you can't repair or upgrade a system it's stupid.
+1 for the NUC - quiet and with a small footprint.
If you're cubicle-bound there's not much value in a laptop if you're just going to plug in dual monitors, a mouse and a proper keyboard. At a company I contracted at, we were asked to hot-desk by bringing in our own equipment. The suggestion was we buy laptops but 99% of the time workers sat at the same desk every day, plugged into said peripherals. And rather than take them home, they were chained to the desk overnight with a security cable.
Laptops do have their uses, naturally.
Isn't one of the complaints of 'developers' that 16GB Macbooks that they don't provide enough RAM for those who want to run multiple VMs simultaneously?
If Linux can be virtualized, why is it not a valid use case to do the same with macOS?
Video work for one. Compiling a modern Linux desktop environment another. Yes, there are legitimate reasons to do both.
I'm sure they looked at the market for laptop 4K video editing at the highest end where 16 GB of RAM isn't enough, but inexplicably, a mobile oriented video card was, and then added in the potential market from Linux source code compilers and moved on fairly quickly from there with disinterest. Incidentally, I know of a company that's still buying brand new Mac Pro's for their editing. Because $15K workstations weren't doing the job as well. I switched from a Mac to a PC recently, but man, for video guys, it's just got to be about the software, right?
I am actually considering making the switch. I bought a Surface Pro 4 to test out how well it works for me (the Black Friday sale made it a reasonable purchase). I turned on the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which provides a lightweight Linux environment within Windows.
For my work I need:
CPU performance is not critical because I have access to a cluster for the heavy computational loads. The Linux subsystem in some ways is more convenient because the slight differences between BSD and Linux can make moving code between OS X and Linux a little bit annoying. The cluster is Linux based--I considered making a *BSD based cluster but the scientific community has gravitated towards Linux.
So, based on my requirements either platform would work, though I probably would go with a Surface Book if I did switch. It comes down to cost and workflow efficiency.
Bullshit.
I have a good friend (who is a EE) who just purchased a Touch Bar 15" MBP, and he is VERY pleased with his purchase. You can call it Confirmation Bias but he says the thing runs circles around even his Hackintoshes...
Since you brought up Hackintosh, I'll add an additional anecdote. I needed a Mac for school. After looking at what was available (and for how much), I opted to hackintosh a Surface Pro 1. My current daily driver is a hackintosh Surface Pro 3, and I've just paid $865 for a Surface Book to–you guessed it–make into a hackintosh.
The Surface Pro 1 ran circles around every single one of the MacBook Pros the other students were using.
In my opinion, Apple is headed in the wrong direction by removing ports and adding gimmicks to their hardware. Why buy a Mac when you can have something that is equally (or more) powerful for a third the cost?
The big feature touted on Surface ads is its touchscreen.
I've never, while using my Macbook Pro, said "gee I wish this thing had a touchscreen."
Is this actually some huge breakthrough, and I'm just blind to the possibilities?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Bring back Steve Jobs. Oh wait. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
If you need to know the application for an escape key, you don't use your computer much.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I was lucky enough to recently pick up a 8G/256G Surface Pro 3 for under 1,000$, and I it has mostly replaced my 11 inch MBA.
The hardware advantage of the Surface Pro 3 over an 11 inch MBA are;
1. It's lighter, and can be operated with a pen. If I need to use it on the train or in the taxi, using the pen is easier than using the keyboard and trackpad.
2. It does not have a keyboard. I prefer to use my Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro JP or my Lenovo USB trackpoint keyboard, so it's nice to have no keyboard in the way. I know many would see this as an disadvantage, and will buy the type cover, but not me.
3. It's screen is larger and has a much higher resolution. This is a more a shortfall of the MBA than the advantage of the Surface.
4. It can be used as a tablet vertically and operate with your finger. Great for reading PDF document for both work and hobby (GURPS).
I've been using Macs since my first computer, the Bondi Blue iMac. I and my family have bought about 10 Macs in total over the years. However, I have not seen any noticeable improvement in it's software after the introduction of Time Machine. The fact that you cannot invoke Photoshop from Photos (which led me to sign up with Adobe CC), and the new Sierra broke Karabiner, I've decided to move away from Macs.
Bullshit.
What's bullshit? That is actually a true story. Sorry if it doesn't comport to your worldview.
I have a good friend (who is a EE) who just purchased a Touch Bar 15" MBP, and he is VERY pleased with his purchase. You can call it Confirmation Bias but he says the thing runs circles around even his Hackintoshes...
Since you brought up Hackintosh, I'll add an additional anecdote. I needed a Mac for school. After looking at what was available (and for how much), I opted to hackintosh a Surface Pro 1. My current daily driver is a hackintosh Surface Pro 3, and I've just paid $865 for a Surface Book to–you guessed it–make into a hackintosh.
The Surface Pro 1 ran circles around every single one of the MacBook Pros the other students were using.
In my opinion, Apple is headed in the wrong direction by removing ports and adding gimmicks to their hardware. Why buy a Mac when you can have something that is equally (or more) powerful for a third the cost?
Equally powerful if you don't breathe on it funny lest it all collapse in a pile of. Barely compatible drivers and kexts, and if you don't mind constantly having a DONGLE (correct use of the term) for WiFi, and cheaper only if your time setting it up and scouring the Internet every time an OS update breaks something else, is free.
Wotta deal!
You can stamp your feet and accuse people of being retarded idiots as much as you want. But that doesn't change the reality of the situation, which is that a large portion of Apple customers feel like they were just slapped in the face. Customer devotion is Apple's primary currency, and that currency just took a dump so hard you'd think Tim Cook deep throated a dozen Taco Bell chalupas.
I love how you're accusing people of being "idiots" and "retarded" when you're the one who sees invisible ports that don't exist.
FireWire 800 - Not there Gigabit Ethernet - Not there mini DisplayPort - Where? SD Card reader - Nada 5 USB 3.1 gen 1 ports? - Nope
So I have to ask... what cracking are you smoking, because there most certainly isn't *anything* other than a bunch of external bus ports that are otherwise useless without having to spend hundreds of dollars on adapters.
And then... and then... Okay, I'm laughing now... you actually point out a $300 port replicator, just to regain the ports that Apple took away? A Three. Hundred. Dollar. Port Replicator. Because dropping $3000 on a grossly under-equipped laptop wasn't enough of an insult?
Apparently *you* don't get it, let this idiot spell it out for you: I don't give a flying fuck if a single I/O port can let me transfer all the data generated by the Large Hadron Collider in under a minute. I DO care that I'm at someone's house, and they give me something on a USB key but I can't access it without pulling out my Sports Billy bag of dongles. I DO care that I can't connect to a presentation TV or projector without pulling out my Sports Billy bag of dongles. Or transfer photos from my camera. Or connect to a LAN via hardwire because wifi is (for whatever reason) unavailable/unusable (because that does actually happen, irregardless of the dream world you seem to live in). And heaven forbid I forget said Sports Billy bag, cause now I'm using a $3000 chromebook.
Almost *every* *single* real-world use-case has suddenly because an unnecessary hassle when before there was no issue. This is the hardware equivalent of when they switched from PowerPC to Intel, but *without* including Rosetta.
If Apple had left the HDMI port and just one lousy USB 3.1 port, there wouldn't be this uproar. If they had thrown some dongles into the box so people could hit the ground running with their existing stuff, people would eyeroll but there wouldn't be this uproar. But no, they had to take away ALL previous ports with no alternative, forcing people to jump through hoops and spend even more money to regain the shortfall. And now a supposed "portable" computer requires you to carry around a small bundle of adapters, like a new mother carrying a backpack of sundries for her baby. I was more than a little pissed off when they removed
I mean, when they released the iPhone 7, they were at least considerate enough to throw in a lightning to headphone adapter.
Let me ask you: when you carry a laptop, do you carry an AC adapter? Of course you do. So you're already carrying at least ONE adapter. And if you have a laptop that has MiniDP (like most do now, including ALL of the Surface line that are the subject of this article), do you carry one or more adapters (VGA, DVI and/or HDMI) to hook up to external displays, projectors, etc? Of course you do. And if you want to hook up to terrestrial Ethernet with most newer laptops (including ALL of the Surface Line that are the subject of this article), in most cases you're in SERIOUS Dongle-World, so you'll be carrying adapters for that, too. So that leaves what? USB-A. So, all this uproar is because you can't be bothered to purchase a $7 USB-C to USB-A adapter, or a $15 32 GB USB-C/USB-A memory stick?!? Riiiight.
Oh, but wait! Since your beloved Surface Pro 4 only has ON
macs are also becoming not very enterprise friendly.
With the soldered in storage being a big turn off for some usages.
The lack of server hardware / the min being a poor fit for the roll. Also apple does not let run mac os in a VM on non apple hardware. (it can be done but apple's license says no)
Apples lack of OS downgrade rights
Apples tendency to drop ports and more on the fly.
Actually, there is one version of OS X which IS allowed to be virtualized: Snow Leopard Server (10.6.8). In fact, you can STILL order a DVD of it from Apple Support for $20; but you have to know exactly what to ask for.
If you need to know the application for an escape key, you don't use your computer much.
You need to know that the ESC key isn't gone from the MacBook Pro if you want to make it appear like you have a fucking clue.
So IOW, unlike me you have actually failed.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Except that affluent idiots (unless you really did mean effluent) arn't the only target market.
Yep, they target poor idiots as well.
Apple products have become like Toyota Camry's. Everyone can afford one and the only people who consider them special are hopeless Toyota Fanboys (I say this as a man who lusts after a good condition MKIV Supra... So I mean really hopeless).
People are rapidly turning away from Apple because they keep making it harder to do things (getting rid of regular USB ports, Ethernet adaptors, making it harder to run Windows) and the competition is producing better spec'ed laptops for less money. Why would I get an MBP for US$2500 when I can get the same spec from Asus or Dell for US$1200?
Not even artists are using Apple any more since print is dying. The web design industry has pretty much moved to Windows, much to the chagrin of the hipsters.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I have no idea what you're using your machine for but it certainly won't fit a lot of people's use cases.
Actually it'll fit a lot of use cases very well.
Very few people need raw CPU power. Far more users I deal with require portability, hence we sell them a lot of ultrabooks with I5-xxxU processors. The U series are designed to be slower but have a lower TPD so they can last longer on battery power, which is something we get asked for a lot more than processing power.
And the I5-U processors are fast enough that most users never stress them.
I think you need to evaluate more use cases than just your own before making woeful blanket statements.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with Apple releasing a disappointing product this year. Let the marketing guys take credit for this one...
Equally powerful if you don't breathe on it funny lest it all collapse in a pile of. Barely compatible drivers and kexts, and if you don't mind constantly having a DONGLE (correct use of the term) for WiFi, and cheaper only if your time setting it up and scouring the Internet every time an OS update breaks something else, is free.
I'm the AC you're responding to.
You're totally correct that it's not a perfect solution. For the first few months, I thought "is today the day I brick my hackintosh?" It's definitely not for everybody. Over time it became easier, and now I don't worry about it at all. I have a 200Gb MicroSDXC card in the SP3 that acts as a time-machine backup, so I can literally break the machine and be up and running again in a few hours. So far I've built 5 Hackintoshes (3 using SPs of various flavours, and 2 desktops). I spend less time fiddling with my Hackintosh than I did fighting with Windows, which is one of the reason I abandoned Windows in the first place (telemetry was a close second).
That being said.. I do, in fact, use a dongle to add WiFi and a couple extra ports to the SP. But, the new MacBooks will be using dongles, too. So, that's a wash. One thing I had with the SP that MacBooks *still* don't have is a touch screen. I can draw in Photoshop with the pressure sensitive pen on OS X, and it works. I can touch and swipe through e.g. Launchpad. I can even type using the on-screen keyboard.
I can do more on my Hackintosh than you can on your MacBook Pro, for less than half the cost. Tell me again how Apple is going in the right direction w.r.t. hardware?
Except that you forgot the SD card reader ($70? WTF for?) , as well as dongles for VGA, DVI, and ethernet. I use all these ports on a semi-regular basis.
Alternatively, I can wait for someone to put out a TB3 port replicator that, alone, costs 300 and as far as I can tell isn't portable.
The fact that you have pushed me into the "beloved Surface Pro 4" camp is all I need to know that you've drunk the kool aid so hard that you are nothing more than conservative religious zealot. You can't even mentally handle the fact that I might be an Apple user myself, can you?
I've been using Macs almost exclusively for over a decade, you nutbar. My current machine is a MBP 2011 because everything they've put out since has been getting less and less functional.
Maybe you should wipe the rabid foam from your mouth and push your eyeballs back into your skull, and realize that Apple isn't the second coming of Jesus.
Maybe I'm an idiot but at least I can actually think for myself instead of having some bizarre codependency disorder with a publicly-traded company who doesn't actually give a flying fuck about you.
There are no plans for a Windows 11, just as there are no plans for an OS XI. (OS X was renamed macOS recently, which is a separate discussion.) Windows 10 will instead get regular updates; currently Microsoft is releasing about two per year.
Yes, the ESC key is gone, except for the version of the 13" MBP with no Touch Bar. It's now a soft key on the Touch Bar instead. That's sub-optimal for many developers, because the user interface of two of the most popular editors for developers uses the ESC key heavily.
What's the application for 32GB? Software development, and especially multimedia development. Modern development environments take up a lot of memory, and if you're doing multimedia you're likely to also be running image, audio, and/or video editing software at the same time. You might be running one or more virtual machines at test environments. And you may have multiple web browsers open for compatibility testing.
What's the application for a removable SSD? When you fill up the one that came with the computer you can replace it with a larger one, which is now affordable because of the way that the prices of computer components drop over time. (You can also avoid the inflated price that the manufacturer charges for extra storage at the time of purchase, which is undoubtedly one reason that Apple is doing away with removable drives.)
I mentioned the use of the ESC key in another post.
One more that you missed: a high end GPU. The fastest GPU you can get in the MBP is the Radeon Pro 460, which is comparable to the RX 460 desktop card. That pales by comparison with what NVidia offers; you can now get laptops with a GTX 1080. (It operates at a lower speed than its desktop counterpart because of power and thermal limitations, but it still blows Apple's Radeon out of the water.) Apple's GPU is inadequate for virtual reality and for high end games, which leaves out both users and developers of those things.
"no value for geeks" - Odd, we use them now as quick and simple interfaces for various Dashboards, because it makes more sense to hand out half a dozen than to have a big stupid screen on the wall. iPads were great, but you can flip from static display to full domain-auth'd windows machine in seconds.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
or a money-grubbing MBA
No reason to repeat yourself. I understood at "MBA".
Can only second that.
Most of my Mac owning friends are software developers and/or musicians.
Those who one them "privately" still mainly use them for business. On the other hand plenty of them live in France and historically the localization of Windows was a mess, I doubt they convert soon back to Windows ;D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, the ESC key is gone, except for the version of the 13" MBP with no Touch Bar. It's now a soft key on the Touch Bar instead. That's sub-optimal for many developers, because the user interface of two of the most popular editors for developers uses the ESC key heavily.
No it isn't. And if you had a clue you would know it. If you ask nicely I may tell you. Or you could Google it. But you probably don't know how to do that either.
Hint: The ESC key is really big and totally useless for any sane person in the normal configuration. Unless you program FORTRAN.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Prove it. [...] So basically the entirety of your "proof" is a couple of anecdotes.
So in other words don't discuss this unless you have irrefutable proof of all the particulars. Don't discuss the possibility the Apple is throwing away business, don't express an opinion, just shut the hell up.
You have mimicked trumpettes' rhetorical sewage quite effectively. Congratulations.
However, your attempt to shut down discussion failed spectacularly. Nice try.
Can only second that.
Most of my Mac owning friends are software developers and/or musicians.
Those who one them "privately" still mainly use them for business. On the other hand plenty of them live in France and historically the localization of Windows was a mess, I doubt they convert soon back to Windows ;D
I also forgot my architect-friend/consulting-client, and his entire family, including his best-selling (nonfiction) author-daughter. The whole family has been Apple users for decades. I guess they're all "effluent idiots", too.
Microsoft reported $1B of Surface sales in the last quarter. Surfaces are out there - I have several, guys in the office have them. Perhaps people don't put their Surface logo on the bumper of their Prius when they head into Starbucks with their dirty, old Microsoft Backpack, but more than a million were added to the ranks in the last three months.
Think of it like Trump voters. No one will admit they voted for him, but there he is.
How did people ever work before the i7 4770K?!?!?
Lmfao a K which doesn't have virtualization built in, what are your use cases? Video games? Congrats on hitting 25 years old, gamerz 4 life!
The last time I bought a Mac Laptop was the 17" MacBook Pro in 2007. It was the very definition of a "pro" laptop.
1) A Great Scissor-Action Keyboard (All But Impossible To Buy Now, Even For Desktops)
2) Large Matte Screen
3) High (for then) Resolution Display
4) Good (for then) nVidia GPU
5) Decent (for then) dual-core CPU
6) User-Upgradable RAM (4GB max, but could be goosed to 6GB)
7) User-Upgradable HD (Has an SSD in it now)
8) ExpressCard Slot (Holds an SD Card Reader Now)
9) MagSafe Power Adapter
10) User-Replacable Battery (Replaced 4 Times)
11) 3 USB, 2 FireWire (400 & 800), DVI, Ethernet Ports
12) A DVD SuperDrive
13) Separate Mic and Headphone (With Hidden Optical-Out) Ports
I loved this laptop. I used it for 3D production work, as well as Video/Photo Editing and Print Layout. But as it got slower, Apple offered me nothing to replace it. They went to smaller, glossy screens, garbage keyboards, integrated batteries, and started tossing out ports. In the end the only upgrade that made sense for me was a desktop iMac, and that was before this latest round of "Pro" fail. Where the only thing I kind of like is the new Keyboard.
Honestly, all I wanted is an updated version of that old 2007 MacBook Pro with black keys, updated ports, quieter fans, and the removal of the DVD drive for something else. I don't give much of a toss about Thinness, or maximum battery life. 5 hours was plenty for me.
I was supporting Macs in a company back in 2005, and I have to say, I don't think they were ever enterprise friendly. They constantly fell off the domain, had login issues, had issues accessing Exchange (even from Entourage in Office). They were a nightmare to support.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?